Thank you Henry. Good stuff. We are living in interesting times. Our Chicago friend and I have gone back and forth as with several others on China's economy.

His opinion, I think, is that China is winding down the ghost debt as best they can but I see RE as still a huge issue. The bubble never popped. There were a lot of games going on with commodities that I don't think were ever resolved.

The lack of transparency will, if things do go south in a moderate way, accelerate fear and panic leading to overcorrection.

But the fact is that across the board sales are down to a significant degree domestically and the surge of shipments to beat the tariffs will end at some point.

In the still of the last night of 2018, the silence of California Dems chilled the air and airwaves.

Border wall opponent Sen. Kamala Harris tweeted three times between Christmas and New Year’s Eve bemoaning the plight of illegal aliens and their children.

But not a peep was heard from Sen. Harris about the brutal shooting death of Newman, Calif. Police Department Cpl. Ronil Singh at the hands of an illegal alien Mexican gang member protected by the very sanctuary policies Sen. Harris champions.

Border wall opponent Rep. Nancy Pelosi decried the deaths of two illegal alien children on the same day Cpl. Singh was murdered, bashed the government shutdown, and on New Year’s Eve promoted her upcoming MSNBC special.

But not a peep was heard from Rep. Pelosi about Cpl. Singh, the suspected illegal alien murderer, or the arrests of a total of 7 alleged accomplices—all reported to be illegal aliens as well.

Border wall opponent Sen. Dianne Feinstein released a public letter to the Customs and Border Patrol agency on the day of Cpl. Singh’s murder to voice her “strong concern about the recent deaths and illnesses of children detained in Border Patrol custody, and to request a full accounting and a revised protocol to prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future.”

But not a peep was heard from Sen. Feinstein about Cpl. Singh and no call for investigation of how the suspected murderer and his alleged accomplices arrived in the U.S., were able to evade arrest and detection, and who employed them, and aided, abetted, and sheltered them."

IMO, none of these Democrats care about the murder of legal Americans by illegal aliens.
There could be hundreds of more like Cpl Singh
Murdered by illegal aliens and none of these Democrats would care.

An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted shortly before the shutdown began finds that both Republicans and Democrats are far more likely to include immigration in their list of top issues facing the country this year compared with a year ago.

Overall, 49 percent mentioned immigration in an open-ended question as one of the top five problems they hoped the government addresses in 2019. By contrast, 27 percent mentioned immigration in December 2017.